


made from cloud or stone

by trulyfine (ssstrychnine)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Drunken Kissing, M/M, lowkey one sided kaisoo but not in any serious way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-07-27 04:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7604278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/trulyfine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>kyungsoo drinks cocktails, walks dogs, resents his friends</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kyungsoo agrees to it because there’s not much he wouldn’t do for Jongin, when he pulls that face. Like butter wouldn’t melt, like he’s never wanted anything more, like he’ll _make it up to you_. Kyungsoo isn’t an easy person to convince of anything once his mind’s made up, but he’s only human. Besides, he hasn’t been out in a long time and sometimes he likes it. Sometimes he is charmed by white light reflected off puddles of beer on a wooden bar. Sometimes he likes the sort of music they play, sound that wriggles under his skin so thoroughly he’s sure he can feel his blood moving with it.

“For an hour," he concedes, knowing that one hour means three at the very least. University is over for the summer and he’s not working for the next few days. Going out for one night is _allowed_. 

“Why are you so _old_?” Jongin whines, throwing his arm across Kyungsoo’s shoulders, laughing when he’s immediately pushed away.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Kyungsoo mutters. “You’re _young_.”

They meet Sehun and Joonmyeon at a garden bar, beers and ferns and shade. They drink and talk and laugh. Sehun hugs his knees to his chest and Joonmyeon’s cheeks are flushed after one beer. Kyungsoo thinks that he would do anything for any one of them. One hour stretches into two and he has no intention of leaving. The alcohol burns slowly through his limbs, making it easier to smile, easier to laugh, easier to touch his friends without flinching. They leave the garden and go deeper into the city, following neon lights and girls in short skirts and boys in tight pants. Going out with Jongin and Sehun inevitably leads to dancing. Kyungsoo doesn’t mind, he will sit at the bar and order increasingly disgusting cocktails until the sugar sends him into a coma. Joonmyeon will love every song that plays a little bit more than the last.

All of this happens. Sehun drags Jongin onto the dance floor, disappearing amongst bodies and sweat. Joonmyeon orders Kyungsoo a sex on the beach, laughing the whole time, and then he disappears too, pulled away by someone who likes the way he smiles. The drink is appropriately pink and sickly sweet. Kyungsoo drinks it and watches the crowd move with the music. His tongue is thick with sugar and syrup and he thinks he’ll taste cranberry in the back of his throat for the rest of his life. Some part of his brain is swimming, his eyelids are heavy and when he looks at his hand, holding the tall glass, it seems to him to be detached from his body. Kyungsoo doesn’t drink often, his hangovers are too terrible to do it regularly, but he likes it. He likes feeling like the conversations he has are light and easy, tripping along to a rhythm he can never find when he’s sober. He likes the feeling of camaraderie that comes with drinking with friends, like nothing could ever break them apart, like nothing will ever be better than his time with them.

“One hour,” he murmurs and he downs the last of the drink, picks up the cocktail menu, drags a finger down the list, searching out the one that sounds the worst.

“You should get a mojito,” says a voice, close to his ear.

“Boring,” says Kyungsoo, not looking up.

“A French 75 then, do you like champagne?”

“Too classy,” Kyungsoo laughs. He looks up then, squints at the person standing next to him, closer than he needs to even at a crowded bar. He’s close to Kyungsoo’s age, he thinks. He has a pretty mouth, pretty hair, a pretty smile. Pretty teeth even. Kyungsoo licks his lips, looks away.

“Twelve mile limit.”

“Good,” Kyungsoo nods and flags down the bartender. He thinks he might be supposed to order two, one for the pretty boy who suggested the drink, but he doesn’t. In all honestly a twelve mile limit is a bit too classy too, but there’s a lot of alcohol in it and Kyungsoo decides he needs it.

“You’re welcome,” says the pretty boy pointedly, leaning forward beside him, pushing himself into the small space between Kyungsoo’s stool and the person next to him. His eyes are sleepy, ringed in smoky black, and there’s something so direct in them, an expression so forward and open and confident that Kyungsoo’s skin feels thinner just looking at him. He doesn’t touch him though, he keeps careful space between them. Kyungsoo looks away, tips the last drops of liquid from his sex on the beach down his throat, even though it’s mostly empty, even though it’s only melted ice now.

His drink comes, smoked crimson, and Kyungsoo hums through his first mouthful of pomegranate and citrus. It’s a night for pink drinks, he decides. Next he’ll order something with blood orange. Beside him the boy with the eyes, the smile, (the teeth, the mouth, the hair), drinks a beer and Kyungsoo is a little disappointed. He should be drinking something slow and dangerous, something deep and golden. He opens his mouth to tell him this but thinks better of it, turns to look back out at the crowd instead. He imagines he can hear Joonmyeon shouting excitedly, dancing Sehun around in circles. Jongin will be smiling as he dances, a smile far more wicked than Jongin ever really is. Sometimes Kyungsoo dances too, when the alcohol hits him in the right way, but he doesn’t think he will tonight. He wants to be warm, like a fire in winter, like a scarf that covers your whole face except your eyes, like being tangled up in another person. It’s a different sort of warm to dancing drunk in a club under flashing lights.

“Are you having an existential crisis?” The pretty boy has turned around too, still close but not quite touching. Kyungsoo smiles. He thinks, perhaps, this pretty boy would like to make him warm. But he doesn’t think that would be the right sort of warm either.

“No,” he says, rolling his glass between his palms. “I’m not having anything.”

“I could say something terrible right now.”

“You could.”

“But I won’t, because I’m a good person.”

“Are you?”

He laughs, a nice sort of laugh that seems like it wants to run away with him. Not a pretty laugh, not really, but nice. He shuts his eyes and flashes his teeth and tilts his head back, exposing the long line of his throat. Kyungsoo wouldn’t mind if he said something terrible. _You could have me_. He wraps both hands around his glass so he doesn’t reach over and touch him. 

“Sometimes,” he says.

Kyungsoo thinks that if he dragged a hand through the air, he might see ripples. Everything is so close in clubs like this, at this time of night, after midnight when everyone is so close to leaving but not quite there yet. He finishes his drink and puts the glass back on the bar, doesn’t order anything else. He’ll get blood orange another time. He wants to feel warm. The pretty boy finishes his beer and Kyungsoo takes the bottle from him, puts it on the counter. He doesn’t say anything, he watches Kyungsoo’s hands, his thumbnail curling under the label, pulling it free from the glass.

“Come with me,” says Kyungsoo.

They don’t leave the club. Kyungsoo takes his hand, (he has pretty hands), and pulls him through the crowd. They find one of the booths at the back, high-backed couches of red velvet, tacky and cast in shadows. Kyungsoo lets go of his hand, nudges him into the booth ahead of him. He sits with his hands on his knees and his back straight, a prim smile, teasing eyes. Kyungsoo laughs. Kyungsoo kisses him, pressed up against the velvet, knee between his thighs. His mouth is warm and his skin is warm and the air between them is warm. Kyungsoo bites his lower lip, just a little, that pretty mouth, and he huffs out a laugh, grabs at the collar of Kyungsoo’s shirt, pulls him closer. It seems like they’re there a thousand years, his pretty hands under Kyungsoo’s shirt, fingertips hard against his hips. Kyungsoo presses closer still, splays a hand across his throat, keeps his thumb at the hollow place where his pulse seems loudest. He wants to be _closer_.

“I live around the corner,” he breathes, mouth wet against Kyungsoo’s jaw. Something changes in the air; Kyungsoo realises where he is and what he’s doing. He doesn’t even know his name. He pulls away. He’s straddling him, knees on either side of his thighs, one hand at his throat still, one in his hair. He looks prettier, somehow, with swollen lips and bedroom eyes and his hair falling across his forehead. Of course he looks prettier. Kyungsoo gets off him, slumps back against the velvet. 

“Not this sort of warm,” he mumbles, touching a thumb to his lower lip. He feels almost close to sober suddenly, close to sick, close to cold. His pulse is thudding in his ear, impossibly loud. 

“What?”

“Sorry,” Kyungsoo sighs. “I don’t like... I don’t _do_ this.”

“Oh,” he’s touching his mouth too, tapping his fingers against his lips.

“Sorry,” he repeats. He feels stupid now, and old and young and _stupid_.

“It’s okay,” he smiles, because of course he smiles. This boy is sweetness and light even in smudged eyeliner with his shirt falling open at his collarbones.

“I’m an idiot,” Kyungsoo shuts his eyes. “I’m gonna go.”

“You’re not an idiot. You could stay and we could talk, I’m good at talking.”

“I want to sleep,” he sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that, it’s alright.”

Kyungsoo runs a hand through his hair. Something feels close to breaking through his skin. His mouth feels swollen. He wants to stand in the shower for a hundred years, it will take that long to thaw him out. The pretty boy is watching him so he stands up, pats his pockets, checks he has his phone and his keys and his wallet. He presses his lips together, doesn’t look at the other person who still hasn’t moved, who is still watching him, who is folding his hands together, over and over.

“Have a good night,” Kyungsoo says awkwardly, looking out to the dance floor.

“Sweet dreams,” he replies, his voice soft, and Kyungsoo leaves him, surrounded by velvet.

He finds his friends in the crowd and Joonmyeon can see that something's wrong immediately and he follows Kyungsoo out onto the street. Kyungsoo feels close to crying which is ridiculous because he doesn’t cry. Joonmyeon hails a taxi and bundles him into it and then climbs in himself. 

“I can get home on my own,” Kyungsoo protests, but Joonmyeon just smiles and gives the driver the address. He doesn’t ask Kyungsoo anything as they drive, he keeps the silence, he hums along with the radio. Kyungsoo has never met anyone who radiates comfort like Joonmyeon does, even without speaking. He’s a warm blanket or the hand that guides you through things you don’t understand. 

They get back to Kyungsoo’s apartment. He hadn’t thought he was so drunk still but he falls onto the couch with heavy limbs and his head is buzzing unpleasantly. He’s going to be so hungover, he thinks, and he shudders. Joonmyeon takes his shoes off for him, which he protests, and brings him a glass of water, which he welcomes. 

“You’re very cute,” says Joonmyeon gravely and Kyungsoo swipes out at him with a hand but he dodges it easily. “Can you put yourself to bed?”

“I’m not a child,” he mutters, sitting up, pressing a hand to his forehead.

“I know,” Joonmyeon laughs. “You’re just drunk.”

He leaves him there on his couch with his glass of water and his stocking feet. Part of Kyungsoo wants to call him back, have him tuck him in, fluff his pillow, kiss him on the forehead, but that’s just the part of him that’s lonely, a larger part of him than he'd like to admit. He has his shower, sitting in the corner of the booth, knees hugged to his chest, water falling into his eyes and mouth, a very welcome sort of sensory deprivation. He puts on his softest pyjamas pants, flannel worn at the knees, and in bed he watches his favourite drama, the one that’s comforting to him in the same way the crispy sesame rice at the bottom of dolsot bibimbap is. It makes him feel like he’s at home. He falls asleep in the early hours of the morning but wakes up not long after. His laptop is open on his bed beside him and he feels scared and sick, like there’s a balloon under his ribs, like he’s woken up from a nightmare. He shuts his laptop, gets up, places it back on his desk. He gets back into bed and smoothes the duvet out around him and folds the top-sheet over carefully and when he’s stopped feeling uneasy, like the waves in the blanket, like wrinkles in fabric, he relaxes enough that he can fall back to sleep


	2. Chapter 2

A week later, Jongin asks him for something else. They’re eating lunch and Jongin’s foot is tapping out his nerves and Kyungsoo wants to press a hand to his knee to still him, but he doesn’t. He has an audition, somewhere prestigious Kyungsoo knows nothing about. Jongin will dance for them and they’ll love him instantly, he thinks, and he slides his thumbnail along one of the ridges in his chopsticks. 

“Just for an hour, round the park,” he is saying, nodding along with his words like it might make Kyungsoo do the same. He doesn’t really have to try so hard, Kyungsoo likes the dogs. Sort of. When they’re stationary, soft warm curly things that fall asleep at his feet.

“And this is the only time?” 

“The _only_ time. I wouldn’t ask you if you weren’t my only option.”

Kyungsoo thinks that might actually be true. Joonmyeon has taken them for walks before and hurt himself each time, scraped knuckles and rope burns. Sehun knows how to play nicely with them but he has his own puppy now and is fiercely monogamous, convinced that Vivi will reject him if he smells like other dogs. Kyungsoo sighs. It’s a nice day and it’s not like he has anything else planned. The summer holidays always leave him with too much free time that he can’t fill. He never knows what to do with himself outside of term time, without the routine classes give him. He’ll clean out his fridge for the tenth time or reorganise his bookshelf for the fiftieth time or make his bed for the millionth time. He’ll pull something to study out of thin air. He’ll fall asleep in the early hours of the morning, half way through a terrible drama or a slightly less terrible movie. His friends are good at keeping him distracted, but they can only do so much.

Besides, Jongin has an audition. Saying no has never been an option. 

“Alright,” he says, making sure to draw the word out, like this will ruin his life a little bit. Jongin smiles. Kyungsoo holds his tongue. Jongin presses a set of keys into his hand and then he’s gone, yelling out his gratitude, a flag of sound on the wind. 

The dogs accost him as soon as he opens the door to Jongin’s apartment. He pretends he can see the disappointment in their faces at being greeted by him instead of Jongin. Their mouths turned down at the edges, their eyes a little sad, their fur losing its curl. He can’t remember who is who. Maybe the biggest one is Monggu, maybe the smallest one is Jjangah. He holds out his hands and they nose at his palms, lick his fingers. He pats one of them gingerly on the head, sending its ears askew. They might be a little bit cute, he concedes. They’re a lot like Jongin really, with that tumbled, fall-down grace he has. Kyungsoo’s seen Jongin dance like his limbs are made of silk and steel but he’s also seen him doubled over, laughing like he’ll run out of oxygen before he stops. He closes the door behind him, gathers up the leashes from where they’re hanging on the coat rack, spends what feels like hours just trying to keep the dogs still enough to clip them to their collars. He isn’t sure why he’s so nervous, maybe it’s the thought that one of them might get loose and run away and Jongin would never speak to him again. Maybe he’s just scared one of them will knock him over in front of the hoards of people that will be at the park on such a sunny day.

“Behave,” he tells them all before they leave. Jjangah (or Monggu or Jjangu) barks and he takes that to mean they’ll do as he says.

It takes fifteen minutes for Kyungsoo to give up entirely. They don’t weigh much, the dogs, even all of three of them combined, but they’re slippery and excitable and they never seem to want to go the way he takes them. He’s uncomfortably hot and sweaty almost instantly and they keep getting their leashes dirty and then running between his legs, leaving stripes of mud stuck to his jeans. Fifteen minutes in he falls. One of them catches sight of another dog and lunges across the grass, pulling the leash across his shins so he trips and falls to his knees. The earth is still wet from recent rain and the fall leaves dark damp patches at his knees and blades of grass stuck to his palms. A small child laughs at him. All three dogs lick his face. He staggers to his feet, double loops the leashes around his fists, and marches across the grass to the nearest bench. He’s going to murder Jongin. He's going to make him do his laundry. He ties the dogs to the rubbish bin next to the bench and sits, shuts his eyes, tries to ignore the dampness at his knees and the roughness of his palms.

“Need some help?” comes a voice soon after, soft and laughing. 

“No,” says Kyungsoo, without opening his eyes. He can hear the dogs getting louder, frantic feet and tongues and jaws. He never should have agreed to this, Jongin’s audition be damned. He is not built for things that can swerve so quickly out of his control. He is not built for dogs.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” says the voice. Kyungsoo does open his eyes at that. There is a guy, kneeling next to the bench, enveloped in puppies. It’s not just Jongin’s dogs though, it’s half a dozen more; a mass of jumping, licking dogs. Feet and tongues and jaws. Kyungsoo wants to shut his eyes again. He shuffles across the bench a little further, away from the dogs and the person who somehow hasn’t been devoured by them yet.

“They’re fine,” he says, stiffly. The guy stands up, smiling like the sun coming through clouds, arms braceleted in dog-leads, hair moving in the breeze, like some sort of dog walking Aphrodite. A pretty mouth, pretty hair, a pretty smile. Kyungsoo remembers his hands in that hair, his mouth on that mouth. He finds he cannot speak. 

“Do you know what walk means?” the pretty boy asks, cocking his head to one side. “It doesn’t mean sit, tied to a rubbish bin.” Kyungsoo’s hands are fists, pressed against his thighs.

“Uh,” he says, intelligently. “Did you... are you... We’re taking a break.”

“I did, I am,” says the boy mockingly, but his smile is gentle. Kyungsoo is very aware of the dirt on his clothing and the way his hair is sticking out everywhere and of his hands, rubbed red by the leashes and dimpled with marks from hitting the grass when he fell. There is a single smudge of dirt on one of the pretty boy’s cheeks, like he brushed his hand across his face and left it there, but it only makes him look more comfortable in his skin, born for the park in sunshine. He looks softer than he had at the club, with no eyeliner, dressed in pastels and dirty sneakers. He looks like a completely different person. No one’s ever looked so good with a bag of shit tied to their belt loop. Kyungsoo wipes his hands on his thighs, surreptitiously tries pull his hair into some sort of order.

“It’s easier with two people,” he continues, still smiling, apparently unaware of Kyungsoo’s discomfort. Or maybe he likes it, maybe he’s smiling because he’s making Kyungsoo squirm. 

“And?” he asks flatly, rubbing at the smudges on his elbow, brushing his hands over his jeans like he might be able to wipe away the dirt with the palms of his hands. It doesn’t work. The person he drunkenly hooked up with in a club a week ago sits down next to him. Kyungsoo is sure he must be dreaming. The dogs swarm around his calves.

“Walk with me, if you like.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I have treats,” he smiles, pulling a bag out of his pocket. The effect it has on the dogs is startling. They all fall silent, they all sit down, even Jongin’s. The stare at the bag of treats with their eyes wide and their mouths open. Kyungsoo can’t help laughing and the boys smile gets wider, teeth and all. Kyungsoo shakes his head, busies himself patting one of the dogs, burying his hands in its fur. Each dog is given a treat, for sitting quietly.

“That’s... impressive,” Kyungsoo admits.

“Not really,” he shrugs. “Want to try walking again?” 

Against his better judgement, Kyungsoo follows him. The dogs seem calmer around him, or around other dogs, or knowing that treats aren’t far away. They stop tangling themselves in Kyungsoo’s legs and pulling him more than he wants to be pulled. He lets the leashes hang a little looser in his hands, no white-knuckled grip or red-branded wrists. Next to him the pretty boy keeps up a steady stream of conversation, seeming not to care much if Kyungsoo replies or not, just happy to walk and talk. He’d said he was good at talking, Kyungsoo remembers. He has a nice voice. He thinks he’s going along with it because it doesn’t quite seem real. He can’t possibly be walking dogs with the same person who wore too much eyeliner in a club a week ago. He can’t possibly be walking dogs with a boy he kissed against red velvet. None of this is happening in real life. Kyungsoo wants to ask his name but he can barely speak.

“The first time I walked all of these guys together they pulled me into the pond,” he says, as they pass the park’s lily pond. “I got tadpoles in my shoes.”

“Because you had no treats,” says Kyungsoo, the first thing he’s said in twenty minutes.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” he smiles.

They walk more slowly than Kyungsoo would on his own. They take the longest paths, the ones that wind through flower gardens or under arches covered in vines. He wouldn’t notice these things normally, flowers and trees and sunlight over water, he would only see the path under his feet and the place he was going and the reasons he had for going there. Walking with someone makes it easier to accept that he’s just walking, nothing more, and that he could keep walking for hours if he wanted, until the sun sent scarlet stripes across the sky. It should not be as easy as it is. 

“I’m Baekhyun,” says the boy, halfway through their round of the park. Kyungsoo can feel a bubble of laughter at the back of his throat and he swallows it, tightens his grip on the leashes.

“Why are you telling me?” he asks, because he needs to get himself back on solid ground. This is a stranger he met in a park. He could be a serial killer. _Baekhyun_ just laughs.

“Well, if we’re going to keep running into each other like this...”

“We’re not.”

“It looks like you walk your dogs while I walk other people’s dogs.”

“They’re not my dogs.”

“Well then, maybe we can both walk other people’s dogs _together_ ,” Baekhyun’s voice is slow and low and seductive. Kyungsoo wants to die. 

“Please stop.” 

Baekhyun falls silent, doesn’t push, doesn’t even ask for Kyungsoo’s name, and he almost feels bad about it. He concentrates on the dogs, talking amongst themselves, grumbled barks and open-mouthed panting. They beg treats when they think they’ll get away with it and Baekhyun gives in every time and he never leaves Jongin’s dogs out. Kyungsoo thinks, perhaps, it isn’t the best way of training them, giving them what they ask for, but they keep relatively quiet and there is no more dirt on his clothing than there had been half an hour earlier, so he doesn’t complain. He’s not really in the right frame of mind to complain. Sometimes Baekhyun’s shoulder brushes his and he feels it down to his toes. 

“I’m Kyungsoo,” he says, to fill the silence, when it all gets too much. Baekhyun smiles.

“Nice to meet you...Kyungsoo-ssi,” he says, inclining his head slightly. Kyungsoo can barely breathe, his palms feel hot and dry against his thighs. None of this means anything, he tells himself, because it can’t mean anything. It’s a terrible coincidence and it will be over soon and they’ll never speak again. 

They’re crossing an arched bridge over a stream and Baekhyun pauses, leans against the railing. Kyungsoo can’t help but think that the dogs might block other people, trip them up, but it’s a wide bridge and he pushes that away and stops too. The dogs mill around their feet. The stream is cloudy and choked with reeds, not beautiful, but the sun hits it nicely in some places and it’s smooth as glass in others. Kyungsoo watches a dragonfly, the way it lands on the skin of the water, looking both natural and mechanical. 

“Kyungsoo-ssi,” says Baekhyun, like he can taste his name, and he turns to him. He touches the side of Kyungsoo’s face. Three fingers, light as a feather, brushing across the high point of his cheek. Kyungsoo stumbles a little, pulling away. 

“Hey-” he starts, rubbing at the place where he touched.

“You had a thing,” says Baekhyun, dusting off his hands. “A flower petal or something.

“Don't do that again.”

“Okay,” he says, so peaceably Kyungsoo kind of wants to scream. “But what if the dogs do that romantic comedy thing, where they tie us together with the leashes.”

“I'm one hundred percent certain they won't,” Kyungsoo mutters. He still has his hand at his cheek, the place where Baekhyun touched him, and his skin is hot. He drops it, shuffles the three leashes between his hands, licks his dry lips. 

“You look like a baby owl in glasses,” Baekhyun says. Kyungsoo turns on his heel, crosses to the other side of the bridge, pulling the dogs after him. Baekhyun’s laughter is bright as sunshine.

When they’ve made the loop back to the main park entrance, they stop. It does get awkward then, like it should have been awkward to begin with, with handfuls of dogs and different places to be. Kyungsoo can feel that the Baekhyun has somewhere he needs to go and because Kyungsoo doesn’t he feels it stronger.

“Thanks for the tip,” he says, busying himself with straightening the leashes, looking down and away. “I’ll tell... I’ll tell the dog’s owner to get those treats.” 

“So you don’t usually walk them?”

“No.”

“That’s a shame, I walk these guys every day.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to say to that, so he shrugs. Jjangah barks and he leans down to pat her, glad to have something to do with his hands. There is a tiny freckle above Baekhyun’s top lip and the corners of his mouth are somehow completely fascinating, the way they curl down and up. He has no right to be fascinating, in any way. Kyungsoo resents the fact that they’d walked together through a park and it hadn’t been completely horrifying and he resents the fact that he can’t stop remembering what it had been like kissing him and he resents how warm it is being with him, walking dogs. 

“Look, I’m not trying to pick you up,” Baekhyun says then, sounding so frustrated Kyungsoo has to look at him. He is chewing on his lip, he is twisting the leashes around each other, reaching down so the dogs can lick his fingers. He looks so tired, a different person again, not slick like at the club, not soft in the sun, just tired. “I moved to the city recently and I work... I work a hundred different jobs and it’d be nice just to... talk to someone I don’t work with. I don’t know anyone here.”

Kyungsoo bites his lip. He’d felt like this, when he’d moved to the city for university. It had all been so much bigger than he was used to and he loved it, he loved the straight lines of stairs and streets and bright windows, he loved the puzzle piece apartment blocks, but it could be overwhelming. Jongin had hated it, had hardly left his apartment the first few months he lived there. Kyungsoo had barely spoken while they walked around the park, but Baekhyun still thinks he’s someone he could talk to.

“Actually, no,” Baekhyun shakes his head, cutting through Kyungsoo’s thoughts, shutting his eyes like he’s embarrassed. “I’m sorry, this isn’t... I saw you sitting down and it was like seeing someone I knew for the first time since I got here even though I don’t... I mean, I don’t know you. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” 

“You’re not,” says Kyungsoo quietly. The dogs are getting restless again, tugging on their leashes. It’s true, really, he isn’t uncomfortable, just flustered, just sun-blind and a little bit overwhelmed. He wraps the leashes around his knuckles again. He feels like he should touch Baekhyun, reach across to touch the inside of his elbow or his shoulder or the base of his thumb. Kyungsoo doesn’t usually talk to the people he dates or hooks up with or fucks after they’ve stopped dating or hooking up or fucking. Getting out of the habit of touching is too hard. 

“Good,” Baekhyun says quietly. “Well... thank you for walking with me.”

“You could... I could give you my number,” Kyungsoo says. His cheeks are burning but he doesn’t regret saying it and he doesn’t want to take it back. “You could call me. To talk.”

Baekhyun’s smile is so lovely Kyungsoo’s breath catches. He wants to tell him to stop it, to cover his mouth, but he looks so happy the thought dissolves. The dogs are winding around his legs now, threatening to pull him over again. Or maybe he’s unbalanced from something else. He thinks he might be blushing and he hopes it isn’t obvious. When Baekhyun’s smile fades a little he realises he’s been staring and he looks away. Baekhyun laughs. Kyungsoo is going to burn the park to the ground. 

“Give me your phone,” he mutters and Baekhyun hands it over and their fingers touch and it doesn’t mean anything that he’s holding his breath as he’s adding himself as a contact. His wallpaper is Girls’ Generation which is completely ridiculous. He hands the phone back, making sure they don’t touch this time. He doesn’t want to have a heart attack at twenty three. 

“I’ll call you,” says Baekhyun, gathering his chattering dogs around him. “I will definitely call you.”

Kyungsoo just nods, not trusting himself to speak. He untangles Jjanggu and Monggu, who are rolling around in the grass, nudges them onto their feet with the toe of his sneaker. Baekhyun starts to leave, walking backwards, still smiling, waving with both hands. He stumbles a little, on one of the dogs, but it just makes him laugh, and then he turns away and he’s running, dogs barking and jumping around him, looking a little bit like he’s being filmed for an advertisement for pet food. Kyungsoo hates him, just a little bit. 

On the way back to Jongin’s they pass a pet shop and Kyungsoo buys a bag of dog treats, the same brand Baekhyun had used, and they wag their tails frantically and he scowls at them. They’re a little bit cute, he thinks, when he forgets the grass stains on his knees. He lets them out into the small backyard when he gets back reasoning that any patch of grass, no matter how small, is better than being inside on a hot day. He fills their water bowl and makes sure that they have shade. He steals a peach from Jongin’s (mostly empty) fruit bowl. He checks his phone and then checks his phone again. His wallpaper is a cluttered painting of an urban landscape, far more respectable than a girl group. He goes back home and puts his phone in a drawer and then a book on top of the phone and then he shuts the drawer and leaves the room. He wonders where Baekhyun is working, which one of his hundred jobs he’s at. He hopes it has air conditioning. He spends the rest of his day pacing his room, levelling the spines of books, trying on different sweaters to check that they hit that perfect point halfway down his hands, just brushing his knuckles. In the evening he calls Jongin to congratulate him on a successful audition and he calls Joonmyun to talk about work and he calls Sehun to talk about a drama they're both sort of keeping up with. Baekhyun doesn't call him he's kind of glad and kind of scared and kind of disappointed. He turns his phone off before he goes to sleep. 

Kyungsoo is not built for things he can't control. But when he gets a text in the morning, the angel emoji and the dog, it takes him the whole day to stop smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i told you there would be dog walking !! i can't. i don't know what i'm doing tbh. thank you for reading! im @oneangryshot on tumblr if you wanna say hello :)


	3. Chapter 3

In high school, Kyungsoo cultivates anonymity. He’s an awkward mix of anxiety and confusion, not really the right sort of smart for structured education but not the right sort of easy-going for anything else either. He likes the way numbers feel, the warmth of getting an equation right, but he gets them wrong more often than not. He figures this out quickly, asking too many questions in class and then asking none at all because of the way the other students laugh behind their hands. He’s careless, not stupid, and things that are easy to understand for some people aren’t easy for him. He understands the way air moves through his chest when he sings and he understands the beauty of a drop of water hanging from a faucet, puddling in thin air. He learns to be careful. He studies harder. He picks everything apart and puts it back together in a way that makes more sense to him. He turns the pages of his textbooks, licks his thumb, turns again, and he doesn’t have time for things like friends or recreational activities or sleep, but he gets good grades.

Jongin pulls him out of this, just a little bit, and Joonmyeon, a little bit more. Jongin’s younger than he is, soft-spoken, soft-everything. And then he dances and he’s the white flame of a welding torch. He’s proof, somehow, that there are more important things than grades, that Kyungsoo might sing along to idol groups when he gets home after school and it won’t ruin his chances of getting into university. That there are things he can't control. They study together and it’s comforting to be able to help Jongin with the things he doesn’t know. It’s easier with someone else there too, turning things over in their hands to figure out how they work instead of being told.

Joonmyeon is older than he is, warm and supportive and endlessly kind. He joins their study group sometimes and he never makes anyone feel like they know less than him. Kyungsoo can feel him even when he isn’t there, when he’s revising for exams alone or filling in the circles of a standardised test, guiding him through the hardest parts. He helps with the other thing too, the thing that Kyungsoo hardly even lets himself think about, one of the only things he’s been completely unable to turn into something easier. That he’s a sixteen year old boy who wants to kiss other sixteen year old boys. Joonmyeon is the first person he tells, lying on his bed while his friend spins on his desk chair.

“That’s fine,” says Joonmyeon.

“It’s _what_?” Kyungsoo sits up.

“It’s fine,” he repeats, stopping his spinning, smiling queasily. Kyungsoo doesn’t really know what to say. He’s not sure what he expected either, anger or disgust or rejection, but he should have known that none of that would come from Joonmyeon. And it might just be because they’re friends but for a moment Kyungsoo’s so relieved it’s hard to breathe. 

“Don’t break my chair,” he says, when he can see straight, and Joonmyeon laughs.

Because of all of these things, Kyungsoo’s worries and the way he works through them, walking dogs in a park with Baekhyun means something a little bit more than it should. It’s not something he can pull to pieces and rebuild, the motivation an almost-stranger has to talk to him in daylight after kissing him at night, and he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do now. They text sporadically over the week and Baekhyun uses too many emoji and not enough actual words and never makes good on his promise to call and Kyungsoo doesn’t really know how to decipher any of it. Numbers are familiar to him now but people aren’t, not really, and with Baekhyun out of his sight and only yellow faces and pink nail polish, it seems absurd that he ever existed at all. 

“I don’t know what that means,” he tells his phone when it buzzes with a new message, a series of flowers and a screaming face with hollowed eyes. He responds with the skull, as he always does, because he likes it. He hopes it’s as incomprehensible to Baekhyun as the flowers are to him. 

He tells Sehun about Baekhyun first, because he’s most likely to know what the texts mean. Sehun is permanently attached to his phone, so much so that he has trouble communicating anything without it. He looks at the messages for a long time, scrolling all the way up, investigating their history in images. 

“Honestly,” he says finally, handing the phone back, “I think he’s realised that you don’t know what emoji are and he’s fucking with you.”

“Fucking with me,” Kyungsoo echoes, mildly horrified. 

“That or he’s as clueless as you are. Is he your boyfriend?”

“No,” he shakes his head vehemently. “ _No_. He’s.... he’s a dog walker.”

It takes more than a week of this for Kyungsoo to lose patience. They’re all at Jongin’s, a delayed celebration for Jongin’s audition, and Kyungsoo is four drinks in and scowling. He’s been alternating soju with water, determined not to be as hungover as he was last time, but he’s agitated. Baekhyun has been particularly esoteric this evening, sending him the bunny ear girls three times, the octopus four, and the bride once. Kyungsoo knows Sehun is probably right and there’s no meaning to it but that doesn’t stop him trying to find one. Is Baekhyun the octopus or is he? He doesn’t reply to any of them, he squints at his phone, finishes his drink, gets another.

“I’m not an octopus,” he informs Jongin, who laughs, tucks Kyungsoo under his arm, laughs louder when he pulls free.

“You’re slippery like an octopus,” he says, fondly.

It takes six drinks for him to call Baekhyun. He’s been sending hearts in all sizes and colours for the last twenty minutes and they make Kyungsoo feel like he might slip out of his skin, float into the air, dissolve into nothing like champagne bubbles. He lines his hands up with the seams of the couch cushions to remind himself that he has a body. He wants it to stop but he isn’t sure he can get that across properly with emoji. It doesn’t really occur to him to use words. It shouldn’t occur to him to call either but the hearts are pink and sparkly and before he knows it he’s hit the call button. 

Baekhyun picks up almost immediately.

“Do I win?” he asks, instead of a greeting. He sounds gleeful, happy, breathless. He sounds like a real person, not imaginary, not impossible.

Kyungsoo isn’t sure what to do. His friends are all watching him, wide eyed, and it irritates him that this should be something that surprises them. He has friends other than them. He isn’t _cold_. He drinks with coworkers sometimes, when he works late nights. They go up onto the roof and share bottles of soju and Kyungsoo only sometimes forgets to speak. Most of the time he laughs. He even goes on dates sometimes, though he hasn’t in awhile and they never get very far. And dog walking with Baekhyun wasn’t a date but it was... something.

“Kyungsoo-ssi?” 

“Yes,” he says, automatically. Baekhyun laughs and he remembers the park in the sun, the discomfort of his jeans, wet at the knees, Baekhyun’s hand on his cheek. 

“Are you okay?” Baekhyun asks. He almost sounds concerned, Kyungsoo thinks, and he blinks and blinks again and takes a sip from his drink.

“I’m fine,” he says, not a lie, not exactly. “I didn’t mean to call you.”

“That’s disappointing. Are you drunk?”

“No,” he says, shutting his eyes, because six glasses of soju _isn’t_ drunk, especially not with water in between. It’s barely even a bottle. “Are you... what are you doing?” Jongin is miming laughter at him, clutching at his sides. Sehun looks like he’s in pain, just trying to keep himself together.

“Nothing, it’s my night off. You should visit,” says Baekhyun, his voice pitched slow and low, an exaggeration of seduction. Kyungsoo really should hang up on him but he almost says yes instead, just because he wants to. He wants to see what Baekhyun does on his night off. But his blood is humming and Jongin seems to have fallen suddenly asleep, his head on Sehun’s shoulder, and Joonmyeon is singing quietly as he picks up empty glasses and takes them into the kitchen and Kyungsoo can’t leave them. His mess of friends. Besides, he wants to be sober the next time he sees Baekhyun. He’d liked talking to him, not talking to him, without the cloudy confidence of alcohol. He wants to see him clearly.

“Not tonight,” he says. “Where do you work tomorrow?” 

“I chop vegetables in the morning, walk dogs in the afternoon, sing at a restaurant in the evening.”

“You sing?” 

“I do _everything_.” 

“Can I come to see you sing?” Kyungsoo wants to bite the words back as soon as he’s said them. They sound too much like he wants something more, whatever they had against red velvet, whatever they had under bright sunlight. They sound too much like he’s showing his hand. He unbuttons the top button of his shirt. He reminds himself that Baekhyun is _impossible_. “I mean-”

“Of course,” Baekhyun interrupts. “Though I can’t promise you won’t fall in love with me.”

“I won’t.”

“You might.”

“I definitely won’t.”

“I’m quite charming.”

“Goodnight Baekhyun-ssi, I’ll see you tomorrow. Send me the address.”

“Sweet dreams,” says Baekhyun, lightly mocking, and he ends the call. Kyungsoo scowls at his phone. He feels like he’s lost some fight he didn’t know he was in. He feels like he should call him back immediately and explain to him that there is definitely no way his singing will have any effect on him. Or maybe he should call him back and sing something himself. He has a good voice too, maybe Baekhyun would fall in love with _him_.

“Hyung,” he says, instead. “Take my phone and don’t give it back, no matter what.”

“You can’t hit me though,” says Joonmyeon, warily, but he takes the phone when Kyungsoo holds it out to him. 

Across the room, on the largest couch, Sehun and Jongin are both asleep now, propped up against each other. Sehun is snoring lightly and his breath moves Jongin’s hair onto his face and his nose twitches. Maybe they’ll start dating, Kyungsoo thinks moodily. They’d look impossibly good together. Joonmyeon sits down next to him, offering him a drink, smirking when he refuses. He sighs, like he’s been awake for weeks, leans back, shuts his eyes. Kyungsoo thinks he should have gone to Baekhyun’s, where at least one person is definitely awake. 

“You should have done all of this when you were younger,” says Joonmyeon, without opening his eyes.

“Done what?”

“The drunk phone calls, the cute messages.”

“They’re not cute.”

Joonmyeon laughs, presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, laughs again. 

“If you say so,” he says.”Do you want a ride home?”

That night, Kyungsoo dreams of sunshine. Walking between planes of green and blue with a hand warm in his, feeling like gold and silver. He wakes up later than usual, the sun falling across his face through a gap in the curtains, and he feels itchy and irritable. His hair won’t sit flat and he can’t iron out the wrinkles in his shirt properly and all of it make him feel like the whole day will be a disaster. And then he remembers that he’s going to see Baekhyun sing that evening and he knows it for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aha i really, genuinely, did think this would be three chapters, but then i got like 6k into this chapter and was like 'i have to split it up' so yeah. there will probably be a new one soon. with singing i guess. thank you everyone who is reading!!!!


	4. Chapter 4

Kyungsoo spends his day avoiding thinking about what he’s going to be doing in the evening. Baekhyun texts him a time and an address and he ignores it and waters his plants and goes to the market and chews on his fingernails. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. He’ll go to a restaurant, watch someone sing, make awkward conversation, go home and never speak to him again. It will be easier to see their differences in a place like that, not blinded by sunshine or flashing lights. They’ll realise they have nothing in common and that will be that. 

He has every intention of going alone. He is not the sort of person to hide behind his friends, though they are louder and brighter than he is and good for drawing attention. He likes to see things clearly, without distraction, like water in the cup of your palms, and he can make a situation quiet and still, even when his own head is full of static. He _should_ go alone, for that clear and quiet calm, but at the last minute he panics. It’s half an hour before he’s supposed to be there and he decides that he will crumble if he goes by himself. He calls Joonmyeon, because Sehun will laugh and Jongin won’t, and he agrees, of course, because he’s the best person Kyungsoo knows, and really that’s the reason he always calls him. And he laughs but there is nothing mean in it.

They meet at Joonmyeon’s place beforehand and Kyungsoo fiddles with the cuffs of his sweatshirt, straightens the neck. He ties and unties his shoelaces, pulling on them until the loops are even and the ends don’t fall passed the sole. They walk to the restaurant and Joonmyeon makes bad jokes and Kyungsoo is absurdly grateful that he’s there at all, to break up his attention. The restaurant is gold and crimson, not luxury, but warm and close and friendly. They sit at the bar instead of taking a table and Kyungsoo orders a twelve mile limit before he can convince himself not to. He doesn’t look for Baekhyun, even though the stage is right there, lit up by a spotlight already. He pushes the ice cubes in his glass around with the straw. 

“Is that him?” Joonmyeon asks in a stage whisper, pointing to the stage. Kyungsoo slaps his hand down before he looks but it isn’t Baekhyun. It’s a taller guy, with bright eyes and fire engine hair. He sits down at the piano and tries out a few notes and flips through sheet music. 

“No,” Kyungsoo tells Joonmyeon firmly. “Stop.” 

But Baekhyun does come out a moment later and Joonmyeon grabs Kyungsoo’s arm and laughs when he shakes him off. He’s wearing a suit, collar unbuttoned, tie crooked, hair ruffled. He looks like another person again, not the guy in eyeliner and a smirk or the dog walker or the lonely person in a new city. He’s a lounge singer, holding a microphone loose in one hand. He spots Kyungsoo instantly and he smiles, this lazy, cocky smile that makes Kyungsoo shiver. 

“My name is Baekhyun,” he purrs, not breaking eye contact. “I’ll be your entertainment this evening.”

He has a nice voice, sweet and clear and a little rough at the edges. He drifts around the stage, crooning love songs, biting his lower lip sometimes, shutting his eyes, pressing one hand to his chest. When Kyungsoo used to sing he would do that too, to feel out how he sounded, but Baekhyun does it like he’s keeping his heart inside his ribs. Baekhyun sings less carefully than him, his voice climbs and peaks and settles again but occasionally he hits a note a little wrong. He laughs when that happens, blushes prettily, makes it seem like just another part of the performance. He smiles at girls at their tables and they press their fingers to their mouths, shut their eyes and sigh. He winks at anyone who looks like they will crumble from it and they do, like he’s cut their strings. The piano player follows him easily, tumbling fingers across the keys, grinning at him in the quiet bits, talking to him in whispers between songs, making him laugh. Kyungsoo finishes his drink but he doesn’t order another one, he hasn’t eaten in awhile and for some reason he’s certain that this night will straighten out all the crooked lines Baekhyun has put in his head.

“He’s not that good,” he tells Joonmyeon. He knocks his knuckles once against the bar, glances back at Baekhyun who is looking at him again, in between songs. He licks at one corner of his mouth, wets his lower lip. Kyungsoo pours an ice cube into his mouth and chews on it until his teeth ache.

“He kind of is,” says Joonmyeon, admiringly. “I’m sorry.”

Baekhyun sings ten songs, all of them romantic, all of them aimed at sweetening the room. Kyungsoo tries to remain unmoved, he watches Baekhyun’s shoulder instead of his face, the shifting fabric of his jacket, the scuff marks on his shoes, but it’s difficult to ignore someone so determined to get your attention. Joonmyeon keeps nudging at him with his shoulder, grinning like he knows some big secret, until Kyungsoo takes his arm and holds him still. He can’t stop anticipating the end before it happens, his heart beats in his throat when each song reaches the last chorus or when Baekhyun’s arm falls to his side, microphone in hand, or when the piano player rumbles up to a dramatic climax. When it really does happen Baekhyun thanks the crowd and everyone claps and some people whistle and he and the piano player disappear backstage and Kyungsoo decides that he really shouldn’t be there at all. It must show on his face because Joonmyeon takes his arm this time, and keeps him from bolting.

“Don’t be stupid,” he says. “At least say hello to your friend.”

“He’s not my friend.”

“Whatever he is, it wouldn’t be polite to leave.” 

Kyungsoo pulls his arm away but doesn’t leave. Joonmyeon is right and really he doesn’t want to, he just wants a way to stay that doesn’t break his heart out through his chest. His hands are steady but his lips are dry and his cheeks are warm and his insides are trembling. He considers eating the lemon rind sitting at the bottom of his empty glass but decides he’s not that far gone yet. 

Baekhyun brings the piano player with him, dragging him behind him by the wrist. Kyungsoo and Joonmyeon stand up and Kyungsoo tugs at the cuffs of his sweater so the sleeves settle straight. 

“I told you you’d fall in love with me,” says Baekhyun, grinning at them. His hair looks damp, falling across his forehead, and he’s wearing a different shirt, soft and grey, rolled up to the elbows in uneven folds. Kyungsoo doesn’t think about him changing backstage, fabric slipping up and over skin.

“I fell in love with him,” he says stiffly, nodding at the piano player who barks out a laugh of surprise, pulls his wrist from Baekhyun’s grip, jostles him aside so he’s closer.

“I like you,” he says, still beaming. “I’m Chanyeol.” He has a lot of teeth. He’s very tall. Kyungsoo forgets what he’s supposed to say next and then Joonmyeon is pushing passed him.

“I’m Joonmyeon and he’s Kyungsoo and he’s very rude,” he says, all smiles and apple cheeks. Baekhyun has his head cocked to one side and narrowed eyes and he looks between Kyungsoo and Joonmyeon like he will find a rope tying them together. Kyungsoo represses the urge to explain the nature of he and Joonmyeon’s relationship. He also represses the urge to ask about the nature of Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s. 

“Have you eaten? Eat with us,” says Baekhyun then, his expression clearing, so bright they can’t refuse.

They go to a gogigui place that’s familiar to all of them. A corner booth and a hot grill and cold beer. Kyungsoo is a little surprised to learn that Baekhyun is older than him, though not by much, and that he’s the youngest there. They eat samgyeopsal and mushrooms and Baekhyun rolls his lettuce so messily Kyungsoo almost intervenes but he stills his hand and concentrates on his own sangchu-ssam, perfectly put together.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol are touchy in a way that Kyungsoo doesn’t understand. Chanyeol is all limbs, resting his elbow on Baekhyun’s shoulder, leaning into him when they speak. Baekhyun pulls at his hair sometimes, when he’s acting too big for the table. Chanyeol pulls on Baekhyun’s sleeves when he laughs. Kyungsoo thinks they might be dating. They act like they’re dating. It’s annoying, he decides, that they should be all over each other like that, sitting in a restaurant with people they hardly know. He stabs at a piece of meat with a chopstick, doesn’t eat it, shuffles the side dishes around just for something to do with his hands.

“Have you two known each other long?” he asks, when everything’s in line, interrupting whatever anecdote Baekhyun is halfway through. “Baekhyun-ssi said he didn’t know anyone here.”

“Not long,” Baekhyun laughs. “They put us together at work, he’s less terrible than everyone else.”

“I’m his favourite,” Chanyeol says, with great satisfaction.

“Are you dating?” 

Joonmyeon’s eyes get very wide, Chanyeol laughs with his whole body, falling across the table. Baekhyun _glows_. Then he drapes his arms across Chanyeol’s shoulders. He has to stretch up to do it, he’s that much shorter, and his shirt rides up at the side and his skin looks soft and gold under the dim restaurant lighting. Kyungsoo remembers his hands on his waist, under his shirt. He picks up his chopsticks, puts them down again, picks up his glass of water, puts it down, folds his hands together in his lap

“Chanyeollie’s in love with me,” says Baekhyun fondly, “but my heart belongs to another.”

“Who?” asks Joonmyeon. Kyungsoo is sure he knows exactly what he’s doing asking that, he’s good at making awkward situations even more awkward, though he always has the best intentions. He kicks him under the table and he squeaks and covers his smile with a hand.

“How are the puppies?” Baekhyun asks instead of answering, his eyes are soft and full of laughter. Kyungsoo wants the floor to swallow him. This is not how all of this was supposed to go. He was supposed to watch Baekhyun sing, make awkward conversation, touch his hair, the back of his hand, his mouth. Leave and never speak to him again.

“Fine,” he says, far too loudly. “They’re always fine, Jongin is good to them.”

“Kyungsoo bought them treats,” says Joonmyeon. “Usually he hates them. I think you’re a good influence.” 

“I definitely am,” says Baekhyun.

Their dinner stretches out longer than it should. Chanyeol is infectiously happy and infectiously interesting and everything he says turns into something else and then something else again. Kyungsoo feels like he ought to like him less, but he’s hard to dislike. His hair is stupid, he decides, because he needs something. He ears are stupid too. Baekhyun uses his hands a lot when he talks and it makes everything he’s saying seem bigger and brighter. Pretty hands, Kyungsoo thinks, and he frowns at his own hands, still folded in his lap.

“Are you planning a murder?” Baekhyun asks then, pulling Kyungsoo from his thoughts. 

“Yes, yours,” he says, automatically.

“I’m too pretty to die,” Baekhyun sighs. _A pretty mouth, pretty hair, a pretty smile_. Kyungsoo reaches across the table and pushes him, the palm of his hand to the curve of his shoulder. It’s an awkward movement, too slow, too sloppy, because he only really realised what he was doing halfway through doing it. Baekhyun looks stunned for a moment and then he laughs, big and open and overjoyed. Kyungsoo knows he’s done for. He has no way to defend himself against that smile. He wants to know what Baekhyun _tastes_ like when he’s smiling like that. It isn’t fair. 

“Ah, Kyungsoo-ssi,” says Chanyeol gravely, but he doesn’t say anything else, he just smiles like he knows exactly what’s going on inside Kyungsoo’s head. He’s seen people charmed by Baekhyun before, the girls he smiles at when he’s singing, the boys he smiles at when he walks dogs. Kyungsoo looks away. 

It’s late when they finally reach the edges of their night together. They’re all full and warm and smiling. The streets outside are wet from summer rain but it isn’t raining anymore and they’re all walking the same way. Baekhyun links arms with Chanyeol. Kyungsoo wishes he could do that, touch someone without it meaning something bigger than it is. He doesn’t think he could touch Baekhyun without burning himself. 

Chanyeol leaves the group first, smiling at all of them with a thousand teeth, disappearing into the lobby of an apartment block. Kyungsoo knows that Joonmyeon place is next but that doesn’t prepare him for how stuck he feels when it happens. He makes sure there’s at least a foot between him and Baekhyun when they find themselves alone. He tucks his hands into his pockets so he isn’t tempted to reach across that space. He wants to say something, anything, he wants to ask him his favourite colour or his favourite food or how long he’s been lonely, surrounded by city lights. 

“I liked your singing,” he says, instead. “You looked... right... on stage.” 

Baekhyun wrinkles his nose, closes the distance between them, nudges at Kyungsoo with his shoulder. His cheeks are pink and his mouth is turned down at the corners, not angry or sad or uncomfortable just pleased and embarrassed. Kyungsoo doesn’t step away, he rocks back against him. His breath feels shaky and so does his heartbeat. He doesn’t burn. He watches Baekhyun’s hands, the way his long fingers are threaded together and then the way they pluck at his sleeves with quick, nervous movements. Kyungsoo knows that his own hands are steady and firm. They would fit well together, he thinks.

“I want to do it properly,” says Baekhyun. “Sing, I mean, in front of people. But I don’t have time to do it much, except at the restaurant.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, if it’s meant to happen it will.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Of course,” Baekhyun laughs. “I saw you at the park, didn’t I? Because we were meant to meet again.” 

Kyungsoo pushes him again, just gently, and Baekhyun laughs louder, shuts his eyes, throws his head back, immediately moves so that they’re touching again. Kyungsoo laughs too, because his face is ridiculous and because it’s dark and because he likes to laugh. Baekhyun’s knuckles brush Kyungsoo’s thigh.

“What about you? What are your hopes and dreams, Kyungsoo-ssi?” 

“I don’t have any,” says Kyungsoo, shrugging. “I just want... I just want to keep going.”

“Keep going where?”

“Anywhere,” he says. “Somewhere that’s... comfortable.” 

“Ah, something boring. That must be why you don’t like me.” 

“No, I don’t...” Kyungsoo frowns, tries to untangle his thoughts. “I just want to feel like I don’t have to worry about anything.” He isn’t sure why it’s so easy to tell Baekhyun this, but there is something quiet in his voice sometimes, even as he tumbles over his words like he’s chasing them, and it makes him feel the way cold sheets on a hot day feels or the way breathing in clean air feels.

“Like even if you take a wrong step, you won’t fall,” says Baekhyun, quietly. Their shoulders are touching and sometimes Baekhyun’s knuckles brush across the back of Kyungsoo’s hand and he wants to take his hand and hold it still so that they’re touching always, but he doesn’t. He keeps walking and he breathes slowly and Baekhyun is just a peripheral blur that flickers into life whenever he finds his gaze slipping sideways.

When they get to the place Baekhyun lives they both stop. Kyungsoo looks at the sky so he isn’t looking at Baekhyun, velvet blue, lit up by the city. 

“You know this doesn’t have to be so hard,” says Baekhyun and Kyungsoo looks at him then and he’s frowning at his shoes. The loops of his laces are uneven, one of them far too big, dragging on the concrete. Kyungsoo wants to tell him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but he does. He isn’t exactly sure why he’s turned it into something huge when all it is is liking someone. There is blank space under his ribs but it feels full up when Baekhyun smiles. He’s taking that wrong step but he won’t mind falling if he’s holding Baekhyun’s hand. 

“I don’t...” he starts, and then he frowns. “You’re annoying.”

“I know,” Baekhyun grins. “But you don’t mind that much.” 

“Stop.”

“Hang out with me tomorrow.”

“Don’t you have work?” 

“Only until four. We can get patbingsu.”

“You know I can’t just be available every time you ask, I have other things to do.”

“If you were busy you would have said so already,” he says, smiling winningly. Kyungsoo hates that he is right. “You can tell me all about the other things you do while we eat delicious frozen dessert.” 

“Only if it isn’t busy.” 

“See you tomorrow, then.”

“Goodnight.”

“Sweet dreams.”

“Stop it.”

Baekhyun’s laughter follows him as he walks away. He puts his hands in his pockets, kicks pebbles out of his path. There has never been a time where he’s been able to relax enough to let himself be pulled by a current. He plants his feet and squares his shoulders and digs his heels into the sand. He tells the ocean where he wants to go. He is interested in other paths like other people are interested in the imagined worlds of fantasy novels, something to think about sometimes but not real or true or important. He had thought Baekhyun fit into that category, the places he would never go, but he seems quite insistent on staying. Kyungsoo doesn’t think he minds that much, not truly, and he breathes in the warm, night air and turns toward home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok ok im pretty sure the next chapter will be the last, unless it gets super long. anyway ty for reading! im so anxious posting this idk idk it's a new worth fandom for me but ily who read and stuff you're the best :)


	5. Chapter 5

Sometimes, when Kyungsoo is feeling unbalanced, like he’s been thrown off his axis, he turns to cooking. It’s not something he thinks he’s particularly good at but he likes it all the same. He clears bench space, lines up utensils and ingredients, chops up everything beforehand so he can see the way it looks compartmentalised, before it’s been turned into a meal. Everything he knows he learned from his mother, though she didn’t teach him. He watched her and he ate her food and he absorbed all of it through his skin and through his tongue, the ways she kept her family strong.   
  
It’s too hot for kimchi-jjigae but he makes it anyway. He woke up late so he can have it for lunch and dinner. He takes his time chopping everything up, radish and spring onions and thick slices of tofu. He scrapes out the insides of dried anchovy with the point of a knife. He still has the kimchi his mum gave him last time he visited, a little over a month ago, and it’s sharp and sour, perfect for stew. He cleans as he goes, carefully wiping down every piece of bench that gets stained orange and the edges of the stone pot when the stew bleeds down the sides. Maybe Baekhyun will eat with him, after they’ve had shaved ice. Dessert before dinner.   
  
Jongin calls him while he’s cooking and they talk about their parents, the places they used to live, how temporary the city still feels even though they’ve both been living in it for years now.   
  
“You’re a city boy,” says Jongin, teasing.   
  
“That doesn’t mean I don’t miss the place I grew up. Seoul is different anyway.”   
  
“You’re not even far away, you can visit on the weekends.”   
  
“Stop minimising my struggle,” Kyungsoo says and Jongin laughs. He moved to Goyang from Suncheon when he was fifteen and Kyungsoo was sixteen and his parents moved back to Suncheon when he started university. He knows a different sort of distance than Kyungsoo does, a different sort of separation.   
  
“I have to walk the kids,” says Jongin then.   
  
“Don’t let them bully you.”   
  
“They like me better than you. See you soon, probably.”   
  
Kyungsoo ends the call, sprinkles spring onions on the top of the bubbling stew, covers it with the lid. He can’t remember when he first started liking Jongin, probably as soon as they met, as soon as Jongin smiled. It doesn’t feel like it used to, it feels more like a habit than anything now. He can’t remember when it stopped being important to him either, but he realises then that it hasn’t felt the same in a long time. Jongin is his best friend and that’s all he really wants. He rinses down his chopping board, sets it back at its place on the bench, cleans the kimchi container, perpetually orange from years of use. When he’s done the kitchen is exactly as it was before he started cooking. He eats kimchi stew and rice and miyeok-muchim and by the time he’s finished it’s the early afternoon and he feels adequately prepared to think about Baekhyun.   
  
“Patbingsu doesn’t mean it’s a date,” he tells his empty bowl and the bowl says nothing and he fills up his sink with soapy water.   
  
He doesn’t feel the same sense of panic that he had the night before. He has no urge to call Joonmyeon and beg him to be a third wheel. Watching Baekhyun sing and everything that came after hasn’t cleared anything up for him but he thinks that seeing him today will. Red beans and ice will tell him what to do. He had made fun of Baekhyun for thinking fate had brought them together twice but he’s willing to put his trust in frozen dessert. Briefly, he’d toyed with making a spreadsheet, a list of pluses and minuses, the things that Baekhyun’s presence would ruin or save. He is very loud, he is very physical, he has a nice mouth, he has nice hair, he believes in fate, he has nice hands. It’s his job to turn people into the cells of a spreadsheet but it’s not the way he wants to live his life. It’s unfair on Baekhyun and it’s unfair on him. They will eat patbingsu and Kyungsoo will _let go_. Maybe. He hopes so.   
  
At four Baekhyun texts him an address and he locks up his apartment and leaves. It’s close enough to walk and it’s not too hot outside so the streets are busy. People pass him carrying newspapers and children and miniature battery powered fans. He follows the lines in the sidewalk. The patbingsu place isn’t too busy, it’s a little bit out of the way of the main streets, and Baekhyun is waiting for him outside. He looks tired, his hands in his pockets, chewing on his lower lip. His hair sticks out everywhere like he’s been running his hands through it. Kyungsoo wants to straighten it, comb his fingers through it until it’s soft and smooth. He clears his throat and Baekhyun looks up and smiles and it doesn't quite wipe all of his exhaustion from his face, but it comes close.   
  
“You came!” he says happily. “I didn’t think you would.”   
  
“Why wouldn’t I?”   
  
“Because you looked like a storm when you agreed.”   
  
“No I didn’t.” Kyungsoo thinks that Baekhyun looks like the morning, a vivid sunrise and frost melting on the grass but he doesn’t say anything.   
  
They make their orders and sit at a table near the back. Kyungsoo waits for them to settle into awkward silence but it seems impossible to be awkward when Baekhyun is around. Everything about him is comfortable.   
  
“Where did you work today?” he asks, wanting to know what made him lean against the wall like he might fall without it.   
  
“At a convenience store,” Baekhyun wrinkles his nose. “It was busy and everyone was rude. A baby put ice cream in my hair and it's still sticky.” He tugs at a piece of his hair, smiles wryly. Kyungsoo reaches across and smoothes down his hair with his palm, does exactly what he wants to do because why shouldn't he? Baekhyun’s eyes get wide and he pulls his hand away, tries to shrug it off.   
  
“It's not sticky,” he says quietly. “It’s soft.”   
  
“I was thinking I didn't know why I attached myself to you but then you do things like that and it makes more sense,” says Baekhyun, watching Kyungsoo with his eyes narrowed, just a little.   
  
“It doesn't make any sense,” says Kyungsoo, looking away, reading the advertisements on the wall. “You're taking up all my time.”   
  
“Good.”   
  
“I have a job, you know, and when university starts again I'll forget about you.”   
  
“No you won't,” Baekhyun laughs. “Where do you work? What do you study?”   
  
“I work for an insurance company three days a week. I’m almost finished my undergraduate degree in mathematics,” he says. There is some part of him that thinks this will scare Baekhyun off, that no one could ever be interested in someone who likes maths. There is another part of him that thinks of it as a challenge he’s not sure Baekhyun will pass.   
  
“Mathematics,” says Baekhyun, like it’s something completely incomprehensible to him. Like numbers don’t exist in the same world he does. Like Kyungsoo’s scare tactics have worked. “And then what?”   
  
“Then I go to Sungkyunkwan to do my masters in actuarial science.”   
  
“Actuarial science.”   
  
“Stop repeating me.”   
  
“ _Actuarial science_ .”   
  
“What’s wrong with that?”   
  
“It’s so...” Baekhyun frowns. “Can you tell me when I’m going to die?”   
  
“No.” Baekhyun laughs and Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything else. He feels like he needs to explain himself so he stays silent instead. It’s a harder thing than it should be, describing the the settled, comfortable way he feels with numbers and equations. “You think it's boring,” he says, changing his mind when the silence gets to long.   
  
“No I don't,” Baekhyun scoffs. “Why should I think something is boring just because I don't understand it? You do and you're interesting so it must be interesting too.”   
  
Their patbingsu is brought to their table and Baekhyun’s is ninety percent strawberries and ten percent syrup. He picks the strawberries off to eat them. He licks his fingers and the corners of his mouth and he closes his eyes and hums around the sweetness. Kyungsoo hardly tastes his.   
  
They leave together, apparently unwilling to go their separate ways just yet. Kyungsoo thinks about the stew he still has at home, easily enough for two, but he doesn’t say anything. They walk and Baekhyun talks about the different dogs he takes to the park and Kyungsoo admits he can’t tell Jongin’s apart, most of the time. Neither of them are prepared for the rain. It hits strong and sudden, so loud that Kyungsoo yells and Baekhyun laughs. They’re near Kyungsoo’s apartment and that’s all he’s thinking about when he takes Baekhyun’s hand and pulls him into a run. The rain is so heavy it’s hard to see and they dodge between people holding newspapers above their heads like it won’t just turn to mush in their hands. Baekhyun slips once and Kyungsoo slows down, moves his arm around his shoulders to steady him, and then they run again, hand in hand. It’s warm and wet and he can’t feel where his palm ends and Baekhyun’s begins.   
  
They run until they get to the apartment block lobby, five minutes in the rain, long enough for their hair to be dripping down their necks and their clothes to be clinging to their skin. The rain stops almost as soon as they get inside and Kyungsoo leans his hands on his knees and laughs with the breath that he has left. Baekhyun leans against him, ruffles his wet hair until he ducks away.   
  
“Where are we?” Baekhyun asks, when they’re both a little bit more composed. Kyungsoo pulls at the front of his t-shirt, pushes his hair back so it isn’t dripping in his eyes.   
  
“I live here,” he says, walking toward the lifts. “You can borrow some clothes.”   
  
In the elevator Baekhyun keeps touching him. He doesn’t mind it, he feels cleaned out and stripped down by the rain and he likes Baekhyun’s hands on his arms, gathering up droplets of rain with the tips of his fingers. He shuts his eyes. Baekhyun touches the end of his nose.   
  
“Your nose is red,” he says, sounding delighted.   
  
“Leave me alone,” says Kyungsoo, but he doesn’t mean it. Baekhyun pokes his cheek and he opens his eyes to push him away, but he’s smiling as he does it.   
  
Inside his apartment the air changes. It’s them, soaking wet, dripping on the furniture, and it’s Baekhyun, looking at everything with wide eyes, and it’s Kyungsoo, suddenly unable to breathe. He licks his lips, he shivers a little, he closes the space between them. He kisses Baekhyun, soaking wet, dripping on the furniture. He holds Baekhyun’s face in his hands and kisses him and he tastes like the rain. Baekhyun’s hands fall to his waist, pulling at the wet fabric of his t-shirt, fingers dipping under the hem to touch his skin. He moves closer, as close as he can. His mouth is warm and his skin is warm and the air between them is warm. They end up sprawled across Kyungsoo’s couch, breathing hard, not warm but hot and wet and sparking at the edges. But wet clothes are hard to take off wet skin and Kyungsoo gives up quickly and falls back and then both of them are laughing.   
  
“Did you know your mouth makes a heart when you smile like that?” Baekhyun asks, when they catch their breath. He moves so he’s half sitting in Kyungsoo’s lap, under his arm, messily entangled.   
  
“Actually yes,” Kyungsoo smiles. “I have been told that.”   
  
“Who told you? Who told you that? I want their name.”   
  
Kyungsoo laughs, pokes Baekhyun in the ribs until he squeaks and overbalances trying to get away. His hair is everywhere and his mouth is pink and his cheeks are flushed. Kyungsoo wants to take a picture of him like that. But then he remembers the club where they’d met, Baekhyun in eyeliner, his hair everywhere, his mouth pink, his cheeks flushed, and something in his stomach twists.   
  
“Why did your face go like that?” Baekhyun asks, instantly. “Why do you look like that?”   
  
“You should...” Kyungsoo starts, but his throat closes. “This isn’t supposed to happen,” he says, when he can get the words out.   
  
“Why not?” Baekhyun looks frustrated, confused, and Kyungsoo wishes he wouldn’t. He wants him to smile again. He folds his hands in his lap.   
  
“You’re... you’re a different person every time I see you,” he says.   
  
Baekhyun laughs and Kyungsoo’s heart skips a beat and he looks away from him. He wanted him to smile but it tangles his thoughts up even worse and he can’t remember why he’d ever thought this would be fine. Baekhyun is nothing like him. Baekhyun makes him feel like he can drip on the furniture without having to turn the dehumidifier on immediately   
  
“No I’m not,” says Baekhyun, suddenly serious, as serious as Kyungsoo can remember him being.   
  
“You’re... hard to predict.”   
  
“Is that bad?”   
  
“It’s... uncomfortable.”   
  
“But not bad.”   
  
“No,” he admits. His hands are steady but his heart is not. He wants to kiss him again and he doesn’t know why he won’t let it happen. He’s holding his shoulders back, tight as a bow string, and he’s sure if he lets go someone will get hurt. “I’m not-”   
  
“I think you’re lonely,” Baekhyun interrupts. “I am too. I think we might make each other happier.”   
  
“For how long?” Kyungsoo asks, and his voice has more force behind it than he intends. “What if we... what if something-”   
  
“It doesn’t _matter_ ,” Baekhyun insists. “Something happens and we deal with it or we don’t. Do you really only do things if you know what’s going to happen?”   
  
“Yes,” he mutters, but then he sighs. “No, not with you around.”   
  
Baekhyun huffs out his frustration, folds his arms across his chest. He looks ridiculous, pouting like that, still soaking wet with pink cheeks and his hair a mess. It eases the tightness in Kyungsoo’s chest. It’s not easy for him to relax, he’s known that all his life, but he thinks he might be able to when Baekhyun smiles. He’s a very persistent sort of annoying. A very persistent sort of charming. Maybe that’s what he needs.   
  
“I’ll go get you some clothes,” he says and he reaches across, pokes Baekhyun's cheek, and Baekhyun swipes his hand away but he’s smiling as he does it.   
  
Kyungsoo grabs towels from the bathroom and goes to his bedroom. He gets his hair as dry as possible and changes out of his dripping clothes and into sweatpants and a long sleeved t-shirt. He picks out his largest, softest sweater for Baekhyun, and a pair of flannelette pajama pants. Functional clothing, he tells himself, but they’ll also make Baekhyun look cute and fuzzy. He hopes he won’t think that the pajamas mean he’s asking him to stay the night because he’s not, he’s just being polite, a good host.   
  
Baekhyun is poking around his bookshelves when he goes back and Kyungsoo watches him for a moment. His tongue is sticking out, just the point, and he’s frowning, dragging a finger down every title. He is holding his hair back with his other hand, making sure it doesn’t drip on the books.     
  
“No dust,” he says, startling Kyungsoo who thought he hadn’t seen him yet. He rubs his thumb and forefinger together like a kiss. “I thought your books would be arranged alphabetically.”   
  
“They’re in decimal order,” says Kyungsoo, handing the folded clothing to Baekhyun. He looks at him like he’s a foreign species but it doesn’t make him feel like they’re too different to fit together, just that they’re different. A fact, not a problem. “There are towels in the bathroom,” he says, his voice coming out rough, scratching at his throat. He points down the hallway and Baekhyun smiles once, brilliant and blinding, and disappears.   
  
Kyungsoo goes to his kitchen. He stares at the rice cooker for several long minutes before getting out the rice and starting to wash it. It feels a little strange measuring out the right amount for two people. He turns the stove on, shifts the stew pot from a cold element to a warm one. Baekhyun comes back as he’s turning the cooker on and he’s rubbing at his hair with a towel and the ends are soft and fluffy and _he_ is soft and fluffy. The pajamas were a good choice, thinks Kyungsoo absently, and then he busies himself getting bowls out of the pantry and the side dishes out of the fridge. Baekhyun watches him, leaning against the bench. He’s wound his hair up in the towel now and he looks ridiculous and Kyungsoo keeps having to turn away so he won’t see him smiling.   
  
“Are you cooking for me?” he asks, when Kyungsoo finally turns back to him.   
  
“No, I cooked for myself, you’re just here.”   
  
“What did you make me?” Baekhyun asks, grinning at him, fluttering his eyelashes like Kyungsoo hadn’t said anything at all.   
  
“I made _myself_ kimchi stew.”   
  
“It’s summer.”   
  
“You can starve then.”   
  
Baekhyun sticks his tongue out and Kyungsoo ignores him and takes the dishes to the table. They wait for the rice to cook and the stew to heat up, sitting on the couch again, and Baekhyun tiptoes his fingers down Kyungsoo’s arm until he reaches his hand and then he tickles his palm.   
  
“Do you want to die?”   
  
“I already told you, I’m too pretty.”   
  
Kyungsoo closes his hand around Baekhyun’s fingers and then then shifts a little so they’re holding hands properly. Baekhyun is smiling smugly. Kyungsoo ignores him, focusses on the way they’re touching instead, their palms together, not numb like they had been in the rain, but warm and soft. Kyungsoo isn’t cold, he knows this even if a lot of people don’t. It’s okay to want to stay close to someone as messy as Baekhyun. It’s okay to want to see him everyday. He sighs and squeezes Baekhyun’s hand, just a little bit, and Baekhyun rests his head against his shoulder.   
  
They eat together and Baekhyun compliments Kyungsoo’s cooking extravagantly and Kyungsoo doesn’t say much at all, but he smiles. They do the dishes together and Baekhyun makes sure every dish he washes is spotless. They end up back on the couch again and they watch TV together and Baekhyun puts his feet in Kyungsoo’s lap and he allows it, tickles his feet until he laughs. Kyungsoo wants to always make him laugh. He thinks that it’s okay to want that. It’s okay to spend an evening together and not worry about what will happen later. That’s something they can figure out as it happens. The evening stretches into night and Kyungsoo doesn’t want to move, doesn’t ever want to move, and Baekhyun’s eyes drift shut but he keeps talking.   
  
“When you were a kid, did you ever pretend to fall asleep in the car so your parents would carry you inside?” he asks, eyelashes trembling, half a smile at the edges of his lips.   
  
“Yes, but my mum never believed me.”   
  
“I’m considering doing that so you’ll let me stay here.”   
  
Kyungsoo shivers, a nice sort of shiver, not a cold one. He is warm and comfortable and half asleep already and there is nothing he wants more than to stay curled up with Baekhyun there until the morning. He licks his lips and shuts his eyes to make himself feel braver.   
  
“You can stay here,” he says. “To sleep.”   
  
“To sleep,” echoes Baekhyun happily.   
  
“I’m not carrying you anywhere though.”   
  
They both fall asleep on the couch, TV on, the air still thick with spice from the stew sitting at Kyungsoo’s table. Kyungsoo’s dreams are soft and cloudy grey and he wakes up in the middle of the night, not knowing where he is. Then he sees Baekhyun, leaning away from him, his eyes closed, his hair falling across his face, his hands tucked under his jaw. He wakes him up, just a hand to his shoulder, and he takes him by the hand and leads him to his bedroom, turning off the lights as they go, half asleep and stumbling. Baekhyun makes a mumbled protest about getting into Kyungsoo’s bed but he just pushes him again until he climbs in, curls up, shuts his eyes again. He sleeps tightly curled, his knees drawn to his chest. Kyungsoo gets in next to him, smoothes the duvet out around them, folds the top-sheet over carefully, kisses Baekhyun clumsily on the cheek, half a kiss, dry lips against the rise of a smile, and they fall asleep again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man yeah so. this is finished! honestly this was originally like a 3k fic i can't believe it got away from me like it has. i liked writing it though, it was relaxing. thank you for reading and commenting and all that! i'm kind of really scared of writing exo fic and i don't think i'll ever not be scared but the nice things people have said made it way easier. i'll write more soon i think, one day! i will! thank you, thank you, thank you !!

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write these kids again quickly because they continue to be lovely. exordium was lovely. walking dogs will be in the next chapter uuuh.. for reasons i can't explain. thank you for reading! ah im on tumblr, @tabeorin, if you wanna say hello :) :)


End file.
